Corals are okay, but not fish left

[LovnChely2]

I seems to be able to keep corals just fine. But fish don't live in my tank for long. I pulled all of my live rock out and put it in buckets with a pump and heat. Picked out some bristle worms and another type of worm. (Definately not bristle) Didn't have any problems with my tank at all while rock was out. All corals and fish were great.

After a month and a half of the rock being in buckets a week and a half ago I added it back to my tank. (Buckets tested fine before I added into main tank) This morning I woke to two dead fish. I did loose a coral yesterday, but that was due to high phosphate.

I have a feeling that I have a nasty hitchhiker on my rock. Is there a way to kill off the rock and start over with it? There is about 100lbs that I'm worried about.

Thanks
Steph

 

[nano10]

What kind of fish? How big? Did they look like they were attacked?

 

[sunfish11]

Why do you think that the rock is the problem? Just curious. Seems something else may be going on here.

The worms were probably harmless benificial dentrivores.

How do you know that the coral died of phosphates?

Why did you cook the rock in the first place? Was it full of algea or something?

Do you have any invertibrates like snails and how are they doing?

Why type of fish died?

What are you exact parameters?

Sorry so many questions, but the post was a little vague for actually trying to nail down what is happenin with your fish.

 

[rustybucket145]

The worms were most likely (99.9%) beneficial for your tank, you killed them and they were helping your tank.

I'm really confused as to why you took your liverock out and put it in a barrel with heater and powerhead???? That just doesn't make much sense to me???

I've never heard of a coral dying from 'phosphate' and I don't even know how you would begin to pin that down. I'm just pulling this out of the blue but I'm guessing a Local Fish Store told you this??

Do you have a skimmer?

It sounds to me like the first time your fish died was a cycle, you then removed your rock placing it in buckets then introduced fish while it was out.... when you re-introduced your rock you possibly caused another cycle causing all your fish to once again perish. You should have left the rock in the first time until you pinned down the problem.... chances are that there wasn't a problem...